Do Androids Dream
by ellyfanfiction
Summary: Data begins dreaming about himself as a human. Is "Daystrom Soong" just a figment of his imagination, or is something more complicated than dreams going on?
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: I wrote this long, long ago (maybe 2005?). It was, I think, the very first fanfic I ever wrote, and I never completed it. I had all but forgotten it when I came across the story "If Only" by wildfire1980, which uses the character "Daystrom Soong" from this story. I was so thrilled to find out someone remembered this story after all this time that I thought I'd pull it out, dust it off, post it, and hopefully figure out how to finish it._

_-x-x-x_

_Brace for impact._

As it did every evening, the thought flashed through Commander Daystrom Soong's mind as he approached the door to his quarters. The door slid open and two small, self-guided photon torpedoes hurled themselves at him at warp speed.

"Daddy!"

Despite the fact that he was braced for the onslaught, he was nearly bowled over by his four-year-old twin daughters. He knelt on the floor and put his arms around them. "Hello, guys," he said, pressing his lips against their tousled blonde heads. "Where's Mom?"

"Still at work," Ishara volunteered.

"But Uncle Geordi said she'd be home soon," Juliana added.

Daystrom looked up and saw "Uncle Geordi" lounging on the sofa, with Daystrom's orange tabby, Spot, purring contentedly on his lap. Geordi La Forge was one of his best friends, and one of the very few people outside of the family Spot tolerated. Most other people were lucky to get out of his quarters alive if the cat was awake.

"Hi, Geordi," he said, untangling himself from the twins and standing up. "Did Tasha talk you into babysitting again?"

"Just for an hour," Geordi said. Beneath the silvery VISOR he wore, his teeth flashed in a grin. "That's about all I can take."

Daystrom knew perfectly well Geordi loved kids, his in particular. Unfortunately, he and his wife Leah had been unable to have children, despite Dr. Crusher's efforts on their behalf. Which was one reason "Uncle Geordi" spent so much time with his kids.

That was just fine with Daystrom. As the second-in-command of the Federation's flagship, he didn't get to spend as much time with his kids as he would like, and Tasha's post as Security Chief didn't allow her to be here as much as she wanted either. Fortunately their friends spoiled the girls rotten in their absence. Even Captain Picard, who was notorious for his dislike of children, had been known to sneak the girls a cookie or two.

Starving after his long shift, Daystrom headed for the food dispenser. "Want to have dinner with us?" he asked over his shoulder.

Geordi shoved Spot off his lap, causing the cat to stalk away in a huff, and stood up, stretching luxuriously. "Thanks for asking, Day, but I guess I better get on home to Leah."

Geordi had been the first one to call him "Day," and the name had caught on among his friends. Here on the Enterprise, no one called him anything else. Daystrom didn't mind. As the child of two scientists, he'd naturally wound up being named after one of the greatest scientists in the Federation's history. It could have been worse, like Einstein or Hawking, but his name did sound mildly pretentious. He liked Day better.

"Tasha said to tell you she'd be back by eighteen hundred," Geordi added as he headed for the door. "Some kind of security problem."

Day frowned. He had just come off the bridge, and hadn't been notified of any sort of problem. Things had been perfectly normal. Even boring. The section of space they were currently passing through was mind-numbingly dull. "What kind of security problem?"

Geordi shrugged. "I don't have a clue. I'm just the babysitter."

Despite his self-deprecating comment, Geordi was chief of Engineering, and any technological security problem would likely involve the ship's systems. Which meant Geordi would have been hunkered down in Engineering, not hanging out with twin four-year-old disaster areas. This, therefore, was not a technological problem but a personnel one.

_Probably the damned Klingon delegation_, Day thought with a scowl. There had been Klingons on board all week, causing no end of trouble. They were being transported to a minor planet, Darbeii, where they were supposed to hammer out a peace treaty with the help of Captain Picard, who was serving as an ambassador in this instance. How the hell they were going to make peace with the Darbeiians when they couldn't keep the peace among themselves was beyond Day's comprehension.

"Maybe I ought to go check it out," he said.

Geordi shook his head. "Day," he reproved. "Haven't you learned anything in all the years you've been the second-in-command? Or for that matter, in all the years you've been married? Don't micromanage Tasha. She can handle it."

Day scowled. There was still something damned odd about the situation, he thought. Maybe it was just the constant outbreaks of violence among the Klingons that had his nerves on edge, but his instincts, honed over the six years he'd served on the Enterprise, told him that something wasn't quite right.

At that moment his combadge chirped. "Commander Soong," said his wife's voice.

Day hit his combadge. "Soong here," he responded.

"Commander, I have a problem here," Tasha said. She was a consummate professional while on duty, and never referred to him by anything other than his rank. No one listening to their exchange would have guessed they'd been married almost six years. "There's been an altercation in Ten-Forward. Do you have a minute?"

"Uh-" Day queried Geordi by lifting his eyebrows, and his friend nodded. It was a mark of how close they were that no words needed to be exchanged. "Certainly. I'll be right there."

He ruffled the twins' already wild hair and headed out the door toward Ten-Fore at a half-run. _Damn Klingons_, he thought sourly, certain they were the cause of the problem. Fights had been breaking out all over the ship all week. Most had been relatively minor, by Klingon standards, requiring nothing more than a few broken bones set, knife wounds sutured, and a hasty cleaning of the ship's carpet to remove lavender blood stains. One had involved a broken neck, but Dr. Crusher's quick intervention had saved the Klingon's life.

Not that the damned Klingon had been appreciative, Day thought sourly. He'd totally trashed sickbay when he woke up, smashing quite a lot of delicate medical equipment. Tasha had had to physically restrain the irate Dr. Crusher to prevent her from killing him a second time.

The heavy wooden doors of Ten-Forward slid open, and Day bounded through them, expecting to see tables thrown on their sides, pools of blood on the carpets, or bodies littering the floor.

Instead he saw his wife.

Her short blonde hair was slicked back, and she wearing much more makeup than usual. Her body, which as the head of security she kept honed and fit, had been poured into a sexy, form-fitting outfit that exposed her muscular midriff. A faint smile curved her lips.

She looked exactly as she had the night she'd first seduced him.

"Oh, hell," he said. "I forgot our anniversary again, didn't I?"

-x-x-x

In his darkened quarters Lieutenant Commander Data awoke with a start.

It was, of course, more accurate to say that his dream program terminated abruptly, causing the unplanned cessation of his dream state and restoring him suddenly to consciousness. But it was certainly as close as he'd ever come to a start.

He had set his dream program to wake him after six hours. Yet, according to his internal chronometer, which was never wrong, only three point eight hours had passed.

"Computer," he said. "Lights."

The lights came on, and Data sat up and looked around his quarters. All was as it should have been. His orange tabby cat, Spot, was curled at the foot of his bed, blinking sleepily in the sudden brightness. His quarters were as spartan and organized as ever.

Yet something must have awakened him.

Puzzled, he stood up and crossed his quarters. He was fully clad, since he "slept" in his uniform. There was really no point to an android wearing pajamas, as far as he could see. He opened one of the cubbies where he kept his personal effects, pulled out a small clear plastic object, and pushed a button.

The image of Tasha Yar appeared.

He stared at the hologram for a long moment. Tasha had died young, her skin very nearly as smooth as his own artificial dermis was. But in his dream she had aged. Not significantly, to be sure, but there had been decided lines at the corners of her eyes that had not been there when he knew her, and a few gray hairs mixed in among the gold. It was odd, he thought, that he should have dreamed of her as she might have been had she lived. It was odd that he had dreamed of her at all.

Turning off the hologram, he hit his combadge and spoke. "Geordi."

There was a pause, then Geordi's voice answered. He sounded like he'd been awakened from a sound sleep, which, given that he and Data were both on the night shift this week, was very probably the case.

"Yeah, Data. What's up?"

"I just had an extremely peculiar dream."

Geordi groaned. Data's dream program had only been activated three months before, and he had developed a habit of discussing his dreams with his friend, a habit that he knew Geordi sometimes found a trifle irritating. Considering that his dreams were usually, as his creator Dr. Soong had put it, "grounded in the mundane," he found it difficult to blame Geordi. A dream about working on relays in the Jeffries Tube seemed rather dull compared to the oddly random dreams humans seemed prone to.

But this particular dream had been very strange indeed.

"Do we have to talk about it right now, Data?" Geordi's exasperated voice said.

"It is not merely the dream," Data said. Still curled at the foot of his bed, Spot lifted her head and yawned widely, looking as reproachful as Geordi sounded. "I had an unexpected anomaly in my dream program. I woke up several hours before I should have."

"That's weird." Faced with an engineering problem, Geordi immediately sounded much more awake. "Maybe we should take you down to Engineering, run some tests on your neural net."

"It might simply be a normal side effect of my dream program," Data suggested. "We do not yet know all the details of how it may affect me, after all."

"Yeah, it might be. But I don't think we should take any chances. Meet me in Engineering, okay?"

"Very well."

Spot jumped off the bed and rubbed against Data's legs, purring. He bent and rubbed his hand down her back briefly, then straightened up and headed for Engineering.


	2. Chapter 2

"So what was your dream about?"

Data frowned. Geordi was attaching wires to the back of his head and couldn't see his face, but he felt a frown was appropriate anyway. He was working very hard at using human expressions in social situations. "It was most peculiar."

"Yeah, you said that already. Peculiar how? Were you doing maintenance on relays in the ready room instead of the Jeffries tubes?"

Data thought he detected sarcasm, but he wasn't certain. Human sarcasm tended to be too subtle for his language program to cope with. "It was nothing along those lines, Geordi. It was—" He hesitated. "I dreamed I was a different person. In fact... I dreamed I was human."

Geordi gave a slow, long whistle. "Wow. That's something, all right."

"I have never dreamed anything like that before, Geordi."

"No kidding. So tell me about your dream. You were human, but not yourself. Who were you?"

"It would be more accurate to say I was not quite myself. I was a commander, second in command of this vessel. My name was Daystrom Soong."

Geordi picked up a tricorder and started to study the readouts. Data turned to look at him and saw his forehead puckered above the VISOR. Geordi, he realized, was worried. "That's interesting, Data. If you used a last name I suppose it would be Soong. And Daystrom is kind of similar to your name, but I guess you wouldn't expect a human to be called Data. Anything else?"

"I was married."

"Really?" Geordi looked over the tricorder and grinned. "Married to whom?"

Data hesitated. He was aware the stolen moments he'd spent with Tasha in the first year of the Enterprise's mission were common knowledge, thanks to Commander Bruce Maddox, but he still had difficulty referring to the event. Tasha had told him it never happened, and those words, spoken as a command, had forced him to put an access-denial on those memories. He could overcome the block and discuss the incident, but only with a strong mental effort.

"Tasha," he said at last.

"No kidding."

"Yes. We had two children, twin daughters. And—" He paused again. "It was the sixth anniversary of the night we..." His voice trailed off as the access-denial on his memory file asserted itself.

"I see," Geordi said. Data thought he detected a sympathetic note in his friend's voice. "So is it?"

"Is it what?"

"The anniversary of, uh, that night."

Data nodded slowly. "Yes. Six years ago today."

Six years ago today Tasha had seduced him, under the influence of a virus that acted much like an intoxicant on humans and androids alike. It was the one and only time in his life Data had ever been intoxicated, and the virus interfered with his memory of the event to some degree, which was slightly annoying to a person who was accustomed to perfect recall.

But as the only woman he'd ever been intimate with, Tasha had meant something to him, something indefinable but significant. Androids were incapable of love, but he couldn't deny she'd had an important effect on his life.

Unfortunately, she'd died not long thereafter.

"So I guess you've been thinking about her a little more than usual," Geordi said. He disconnected the wire from Data's head and closed the access port. "Maybe imagining things had turned out differently, huh?"

"That would be wishful thinking, Geordi."

"Well..." Geordi paused. "Maybe consciously you don't think about stuff like that, but it could be your subconscious does. Or whatever you have that serves as a subconscious."

"I suppose that is possible."

Gordi took a last look at his tricorder. "I don't see anything wrong with your neural net, Data. All your readings are right where they should be. I think you probably just woke up because your dream was so different from the ones you've had before."

"Perhaps you are correct."

Geordi shrugged. "Isn't that what you said Dr. Soong told you he wanted, for you to experience real imagination? Maybe after a few months, your dream program is starting to get a little more random."

Data said nothing. He couldn't refute Geordi's statement. None of them knew precisely how his dream program was supposed to work. Anything was possible. And yet—he thought about it for a moment, then realized exactly what was bothering him.

"I experienced emotions, Geordi."

Another frown creased Geordi's face. "Must be a product of your imagination, Data."

"No. I remember..." He trailed off. _Did_ he remember? He vividly recalled seeing Tasha, recalled clearly the gown she wore, the way she looked and smelled, and yet...

He believed he had felt love for her. But the memory of that love had somehow dissipated. He had no trouble recalling the events of his dreams, but the emotions were somehow much more elusive.

Had he really experienced those emotions at all?

"Perhaps you are correct," he said at last. "Perhaps it was merely... my imagination."

Geordi looked like he was "in over his head," as humans put it, but then he brightened, as if an idea had occurred to him. "Maybe you ought to talk to Counselor Troi tomorrow anyway. Just to see what she thinks."

"That is an excellent suggestion, Geordi."

"In the meantime—" Geordi dropped his tricorder onto a table and offered him a grin. The grin looked a little forced, and Data recognized that his friend was still concerned, but struggling not to show it. "I'm going to bed. I suggest you do likewise."

Data stood up. "Good night, Geordi."

"'Night, Data." Geordi flashed a more genuine grin at him. "And pleasant dreams."

-x-x-x-

"That's extremely interesting, Data."

The next morning, Data sat in Counselor Deanna Troi's quarters. She was seated on her couch, sipping tea as she listened to him talk. He was fond of Deanna, inasmuch as he could be fond of anyone. She had a gentle, unprepossessing personality, not unlike his own, and she rarely laughed at his attempts to become more human. He knew he remained something of an enigma to her, however, as the only lifeform on board whose thoughts were a complete blank to her.

Deanna had recently started wearing a blue-and-black Starfleet uniform, rather than the more casual outfits she had previously affected, and her hair fell in a curly black mass down her back. Her dark Betazoid eyes regarded him with their customary intensity.

It was the first time he'd ever visited her quarters as a patient. Even after Tasha had died he had refused any sort of counseling, feeling that it was superfluous, if not outright silly, for an android to be counseled. But now he was surprised to find that he felt—well, perhaps _awkward_ was the best word. Not uncomfortable, for that implied an emotional state. He simply felt oddly out of his element._ Like a fish out of water_, as humans said. He belonged in Engineering or on the bridge, not in a counselor's office, baring his...

Soul?

He pushed his doubts aside and answered as candidly as he could. "I am not certain my dream could be considered interesting to anyone besides myself, Counselor. But I found it intriguing. I have often wondered what it is like to be human, yet I know my wildest flights of imagination fell far short of the reality." He paused, trying to remember. "But in my dream, I _knew_. I knew what it was to be human."

Deanna leaned forward slightly and regarded him more closely. "Humans experience emotions almost constantly, Data. Are you trying to imply you experienced an emotional state during your dream?"

"More than one, I believe. I experienced friendship for Geordi, exasperation toward the Klingons, love and affection for my children, and love and sexual desire for my wife."

"Do you remember those aspects of the dream?"

Data paused again, sorting rapidly through the images in his mind. "Not precisely. I remember every event of my dream, but when it comes to the emotions it evoked, it is as if I have a faint memory of those emotions, but no real access to the emotions themselves." He paused and met Deanna's eyes. "And yet, in my dream—I _felt_. I am certain of it."

"Interesting," she said, her voice as soft and musical as ever. "But you are not capable of feeling a real emotion, Data. Are you?"

"Not that I am aware of, Counselor." He uttered what he thought was a human-sounding sigh. "It is a paradox I cannot explain."

Humor flickered in the dark depths of her eyes, causing him to suspect his sigh had not sounded as natural as he had hoped. "I can't explain it either, Data. Perhaps you should activate your dream program again tonight. Maybe that will help clarify what's going on."

Data nodded. "I planned on doing that, Counselor. It seemed like the logical thing to do."

"Yes," she said, a small smile quirking the corners of her mouth. "I rather suspected you would." She hesitated. "Do you want to discuss the content of your dream, Data?"

Data gazed at her, puzzled. "I already told you the entire dream."

"I mean—" Deanna sighed, a much more natural-sounding sigh than he had managed. Data carefully recorded it for later examination and practice. "I mean, do you want to talk about what these images might mean to you?"

"You mean the possible reasons why I might have dreamed of being human?"

"I hardly think it takes a psychology degree to guess at those reasons, Data. You've never made a secret of your desire to be as human as possible. I was thinking more of the reasons you might have dreamed of being married to Tasha." She hesitated, looked down into her teacup, then looked up again and met his eyes. "Do you have any regrets, Data? _Can_ you have regrets?"

"Not in any emotional sense, Counselor. And yet..." He hesitated, trying to put something indefinable into words. Which was, by definition, impossible. It was therefore most illogical of him to make the attempt, but he did his best anyway. "I have wondered, more than once, what might have happened had I not accepted Tasha's rejection. If I had tried harder to establish a relationship with her."

"Tell me, Data, why did you accept her rejection so easily?"

"I barely knew her, Counselor. She had always treated me with respect, even with friendliness, but when she told me it never happened, I sensed she was... embarrassed. At the time, I felt certain her embarrassment arose from the fact that I was a machine."

"Do you still believe that?"

"I am... not certain. I grew to know her better before she died, and I came to realize that she was reluctant to experience any kind of intimacy with anyone, probably as a result of her unfortunate childhood. I now suspect she might have reacted to any male precisely as she did to me."

"So you believe if you had refused to accept her rejection, you might have established a relationship with her?"

"It could hardly have mattered, since she died six months later."

Deanna looked down into her teacup again and spoke softly. "'It is better to have loved and lost...'"

Her voice trailed off, but Data instantly accessed the reference. "Ah. You are suggesting it might have been preferable for me to have six months in a relationship with her than a lifetime without her."

"I can't say, Data."

"Nor can I. But the quote you are referring to is inappropriate, Deanna. I cannot love."

Deanna set her teacup down on the glass table with a sigh. "No, Data. I suppose you can't. But evidently you can dream of love."

Data frowned. "I do not understand how it is possible for me to dream of something I have never experienced. It is most peculiar." He shook his head. "But then... it was a most peculiar dream."


	3. Chapter 3

"I had the weirdest dream last night."

Geordi's head had disappeared beneath a console, but his voice floated out, muffled only slightly. "Really? What about?"

Daystrom studied the pulsing warp engines of the Enterprise, then looked back down at the readouts at the engineering station he stood at. "I'm not really sure," he said. "Something about being a machine, I think."

Geordi snorted. "You've been hanging around in Engineering too much, Day. That's a common nightmare among engineers. I personally dream about becoming a warp engine all the time."

"Not that kind of machine," Day said. "More like—I don't know, a thinking machine. Like a computer, sort of. Artificial intelligence, maybe."

"Like your father worked on?"

"Yeah, like those androids my dad was always trying to build." Day grinned reminiscently. "He built three of the damned things before he gave up and had me instead." He chuckled. "I never got over feeling he was disappointed to have a kid the regular way."

"So you dreamed you were one of your father's androids?"

Day squinted at the readout. "We're still only at 96% efficiency here, Geordi." He glanced down at his friend's feet, sticking out from beneath the console. "I think that was it, yeah. Creepy, huh?"

"I dunno," Geordi said. "I guess being an android could have its advantages."

Day shook his head. "I don't think so. I can't blame my mom for trying to get my father to stop building the things. I can't imagine anything worse than creating an intelligence that could learn and grow but never feel anything. Or even worse, _being_ that kind of intelligence. To me, that would be hell on earth."

Geordi grunted noncommittally, made a last adjustment, and slid out from beneath the console. "Better?"

Day nodded. "97 percent." He grinned. "That ought to make the captain happy."

There was a perceptible flicker in his readings, and Day looked up. The steady pulse of the warp engine was flickering as well. "What the—" he said, and felt the shuddering of the deck beneath him as the ship abruptly fell out of warp. He and Geordi exchanged puzzled glances, and Captain Picard's voice sounded almost immediately over his combadge. "Commander Soong."

Day hit his badge. "Sir?"

"He doesn't sound happy at all," Geordi said under his breath.

"I have a Klingon delegation that I'm quite anxious to get to Darbeii, Number One. What precisely are you and Lieutenant LaForge doing down there in engineering?"

Day scowled at his console. The adjustments they'd made had been minor at best. "We didn't do anything that would cause this, sir."

There was a pause, as Picard apparently spoke to someone on the bridge. Then his voice spoke again. "Perhaps you'd better report to the bridge, Number One."

It was phrased as a suggestion, but Day knew his captain well enough to know that it was an order. At any rate, there was an urgent note in the captain's voice that was at odds with his normal calm demeanor.

Day headed for the bridge at top speed.

-x-x-x-

"Commander Data."

The sound of Captain Picard's voice awakened Data, who had of course programmed himself to wake up at such a summons. He sat up in bed and hit his combadge. "Sir?"

"We have an engineering problem, Mr. Data. The ship just dropped out of warp."

Data's dream rushed back into his consciousness, and he blinked in surprise. The very same event had taken place in his dream. That could not possibly be a coincidence.

_I must have felt the ship drop out of warp_, he realized.

And yet—he recalled he'd been dreaming about the same person, the Data-who-wasn't, a commander named Daystrom Soong. He—Daystrom—had been in engineering, talking to Geordi. A perfectly normal, even mundane, setting for a very odd dream. Just like his last dream.

He responded without any perceptible pause. "What precisely is the problem, Captain?"

"Geordi's not certain, Commander. He—" Picard broke off for a moment. When he spoke again, there was a different note in his voice, a note of mingled interest and concern. "Perhaps you'd better come to the bridge, Mr. Data."

"On my way, sir."

-x-x-x-

As he entered the bridge through the turbolift doors, Data saw clearly why he had been summoned to the bridge. There was a large, shifting _something_ on the forward viewscreen, blocking out their view of much of the surrounding space. He gazed at the phenomenon, intrigued, as he slid into his seat at Ops. He'd never seen anything quite like it before.

"Analysis, Mr. Data?"

Data studied the readings flashing rapidly across his console, then glanced back over his shoulder. Picard was seated in the central seat of the bridge, and next to him was perched the second-in-command, Commander William Riker. Behind them, at the engineering station at the rear of the bridge, sat Geordi. Data addressed the captain. "It appears to be a spatial anomaly, sir."

Picard gave a slight, huffing breath, which for him indicated extreme annoyance. "Indeed, Commander. I rather suspected as much. But labeling it an anomaly does little to clarify the phenomenon. Can you be more specific?"

Data frequently found it difficult to explain things to Captain Picard. If he tried to keep his statements short and to the point, Picard demanded more information. If he tried to provide more detail, Picard frequently cut him off in exasperation. It was really quite bewildering. Nevertheless, he did his best to be more precise.

"Readings are spotty at best," he said. "It is several light-years across—two point... no, three—" He hesitated. "The anomaly seems to be shifting. Every nanosecond its borders alter."

"Interesting," Picard said. He walked up, stood next to Data, and looked intently at the screen—another habit he possessed that had long puzzled Data. It was as if the captain believed that if he stared at something long enough he would somehow perceive something the sensors had missed. Which was, of course, ridiculous. "I assume that explains how it suddenly seemed to pop out of nowhere."

"I do not believe that it 'popped out of nowhere,' sir." Data frowned as he studied his instruments. "I believe this may be an interspatial phenomenon."

"Explain yourself, Commander."

Data examined the readings and struggled to find words to describe something that, to his knowledge, had never been directly observed before. "An interspatial phenomenon. A phenomenon that bridges two generally separate and discrete spaces."

Picard looked down at him, and his forehead wrinkled. "Are you trying to suggest this thing may be a bridge between universes, Mr. Data?"

"These readings suggest that may be the case, sir."

Picard glanced back up at the viewscreen, where the bluish-white light of the anomaly seemed to writhe eerily against the backdrop of normal space. Long glowing filaments stretched out from the main mass of the phenomenon, twisting and coiling before abruptly popping out of existence again. "When its borders alter, then—"

"It appears to be shifting back and forth between the two universes it bridges, yes."

Picard frowned. "Two parallel universes, Commander?"

Data lifted a shoulder in his best imitation of a humanoid shrug. "I spoke imprecisely, sir. 'Parallel universe' is an inexact phrase at best. A more accurate term might be _quantum reality_. The concept of quantum realities dates to the mid-twentieth century, when Hugh Everett proposed the relative-state metatheory, popularly known as the 'many-worlds theory.' Experiments on the nature of light, called 'double slit tests,' showed that the possibility of what light could do affected the outcome of the tests. This suggested that all possibilities exist at once, and Everett postulated that all the possibilities for every action exist as parallel universes or quantum realities. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that all the possible outcomes of any given quantum interaction are realized."

"Commander..."

Data glanced up at Picard and saw dawning exasperation on the captain's face. He cut his explanation short. "Since there are an infinite number of possibilities, there is theoretically an infinite number of quantum realities, or parallel universes. They do not share the same spacetime, however, so they cannot be accessed, and thus each seems to its inhabitants be the one and only universe. The term parallel suggests they never intersect, just as two parallel lines can never cross."

"But they can be bridged."'

"In a manner of speaking. A phenomenon called the Einstein-Rosem bridge, thought to be an area that touches two quantum realities, exists in a black hole. But one cannot cross through it at our current level of technology, since the gravitational forces are too great. This phenomenon, on the other hand—" Data nodded toward the viewscreen. "It may serve the same function as a line drawn at right angles between two parallel lines. It may connect our universe to the next nearest one."

"Which may be quite similar to our universe?"

"Or may not be. Simply because physicists believe quantum realities are extraordinarily similar does not necessarily suggest they will be. I am afraid that such theories fall into the realm of speculation, Captain."

Captain Picard looked down at him. "Stepping back out of the realm of speculation, Commander, precisely why have we lost power?"

Data consulted his console. "The phenomenon is draining our power, sir."

"Somehow I knew you were going to say that," Picard muttered. He frowned at the phenomenon as if it had issued a personal insult. "If it's shifting back and forth between the two universes it connects, then will it eventually shift back into the other universe entirely?"

"Since it just 'popped out of nowhere,' that would seem to be a reasonable hypothesis."

"Then once it shifts entirely out of our universe, will we regain power?"

"It depends. At the rate it is draining our dilithium crystals, we have four point—" Data noticed Picard's thinly veiled irritation and hastily corrected himself. "About four and a half hours before we will be unable to return to warp."

"Can we back away from that thing at impulse?"

"Impulse power is down as well, and draining even more rapidly."

"So we're stuck here."

"It would appear so, yes."

Picard nodded. "Commander La Forge," he said to Geordi. "Go down to Engineering and see if you can find some way to restore power."

"Aye, sir," Geordi said, heading for the turbolift doors. Picard turned back to Data.

"Continue to monitor that anomaly, Commander Data."

Data frowned at his readings. "My ability to monitor it is compromised by the distance we are currently maintaining, sir. I would suggest that getting closer to it might provide us with a wealth of valuable scientific information."

"Unfortunately, Commander, the engines are simply not cooperating."

Data tilted his head as he contemplated the problem. The phenomenon was fascinating and unique- far too valuable a find to waste. They needed to learn every bit of information they could about it. That was, after all, one of the main purposes of their mission. "We must not allow this opportunity to go to waste, sir."

Picard sighed. "Perhaps a probe, Data?"

"I doubt a probe will work, sir. I believe the power will be drained from it, rendering it useless."

"Try it."

Data rapidly entered information into the keypad of his console. "Launching probe now, Captain," he reported.

Thirty-two billion nanoseconds—slightly over half a minute- later the signals from the probe abruptly cut off. "The probe has ceased transmitting information," he stated.

Picard frowned. "Any other suggestions, Commander?"

Data stared thoughtfully at the anomaly. "What if I were to take out a shuttlecraft?"

Picard settled back in his command chair and regarded him curiously. "Perhaps I'm missing something here, Commander, but if our impulse engines have failed, surely a shuttlecraft's won't work either."

Data turned in his seat and faced the captain. "Based on my readings from the probe, I believe the engines will be able to emit one burst of energy before it is absorbed by the phenomenon, sir. If the shuttlecraft is aimed in the correct direction, inertia will keep it heading toward the anomaly at a constant speed."

"And what will keep you from sailing right on into the anomaly?" Riker inquired.

"My readings indicate the Enterprise will have sufficient energy to activate a tractor beam for the next one-point-five hours," Data said. "I could take readings up until that time, and then you could prevent the shuttlecraft from advancing further and bring it back to the ship."

"It's too dangerous," Riker objected. "Suppose one of those tentacles were to cross through the shuttlecraft?"

_Tentacles_ was an imprecise but oddly descriptive word, Data thought, realizing Riker was speaking of the filaments of light that occasionally flickered out from the anomaly. "I do not believe the filaments pose any danger," he said earnestly.

"It still sounds risky," Riker said. In his personal life he was not averse to risk, but as the second in command he was notably cautious about sending crewmembers into danger unnecessarily.

"Perhaps it is," Data acknowledged. "But we have the opportunity to investigate an entirely new phenomenon at close range, sir. Such an opportunity must not be squandered."

Riker looked at him a long moment. Beneath his dark facial hair, his mouth twitched. "Data," he said at last, "have you ever heard the expression, 'Curiosity killed the cat?'"

"Yes, sir," Data said, wondering what the peculiar idioms of the English language had to do with the anomaly. "However, I have never understood precisely what it means."

"Obviously," Captain Picard said with a wry smile. He shrugged. "Very well, Commander. Make it so."


	4. Chapter 4

"What the hell is it?"

Commander Daystrom Soong dropped into one of the chairs that occupied the center of the bridge, next to Captain Picard, and addressed his question to the science officer, Lieutenant Commander Bruce Maddox. Dark-haired, tall, and blocky, Maddox was from the human colony Paloma, where radiation-induced mutations had caused the human population there to have life spans rivalling those of Vulcans. He was past fifty years old but appeared barely twenty-five, somewhat to the annoyance of Day, who was extremely conscious of his already-receding hairline.

"I don't know, sir," Maddox said, his fingers racing as he struggled to draw up information from the computer's library which might help. "Some sort of anomaly... the computer's not much help in identifying it. Looks like something that's never been seen before."

Day frowned at the thing on the viewscreen. The Enterprise had run across more than one temporal-spatial anomaly on its long mission, and this one looked about like the others to him. Big. Disturbing. Dangerous.

He decided not to worry about what the thing was, precisely, and asked what he considered to be a more relevant question. "Why aren't our engines working?"

"It's draining our power," Maddox answered. "Warp as well as impulse. I'd guess that thing feeds off any power that comes its way."

"How do you propose we get away?"

"Uh..." Maddox sighed. "I don't see a way right now, sir. Maybe Engineering can come up with something."

Day hit his combadge. "Geordi. See if you can figure out a way to get us out of here."

As Geordi acknowledged, Captain Picard rose in his seat and headed toward the viewscreen. "Fascinating," he said, to the bridge at large. "It's beautiful. But what precisely is it?"

"I think it's spatial in nature, rather than temporal," Maddox volunteered. "At least I'm not reading any temporal fluctuations. But spatially—" He hesitated. "There are definitely some quantum variations."

"Meaning?" Day said sharply.

"I think it might be a kind of gateway. Something that leads to another universe."

"Artificial or natural?" Day demanded. They'd recently suffered through an extremely unpleasant ordeal when an alien species had utilized spatial ruptures in order to kidnap crew members and experiment on them. The thought that this thing might be a similar sort of weapon on a grander scale was disturbing.

"Uh—natural, I think. It's not very regular—see how it keeps changing? I think a created phenomenon would demonstrate a lot more regularity."

"Is it a wormhole?"

Maddox shook his head. "No, a wormhole is by definition a hole in the fabric of our spacetime. I think this is more like a bridge, going between two different spacetimes. But—" He turned to the captain with exasperation. "I just can't get good enough readings from here, Captain. We're too far out."

"What about a probe?" Picard suggested.

"It won't get far before it quits working, I think. Its energy will be depleted too fast. But a shuttle might work."

"How?" Day asked. "If its impulse power won't work—"

"Just one burst of impulse power would do it, sir. Inertia would keep it going. And unlike a probe, a shuttle has shielding that would probably protect its systems to some extent. We could get it back with a tractor beam."

Day thought that sounded like a harebrained idea, but Captain Picard was nodding. "Excellent notion, Mr. Maddox. If you-"

Day stood up. "Just a minute, sir. This sounds dangerous. If you think it's a good idea, I should be the one to go in that shuttlecraft."

Picard turned and regarded him with a wry twist of his mouth. Day's fierce determination to never let his subordinates go into danger unnecessarily was legendary, and occasionally set him and the captain at odds.

"This seems like something the science officer would be better suited to, Number One," Picard said mildly.

Day refused to back down. "I have a background in science too, sir. I am perfectly capable of taking the required readings and transmitting them back to the ship. And you may require the services of Commander Maddox to figure out how to get away from this thing. I should be the one to go out there, Captain."

Picard locked eyes with him a long moment, then, slowly, nodded.

"Make it so, Commander," he said.

-x-x-x-

When Data awoke, he experienced a long moment of disorientation—something he had never in his life experienced before. He blinked hard in an attempt to rid himself of the strange feeling of confusion that had gripped him.

He had been dreaming again.

But strangely, he didn't remember going to sleep. He was lying down, but he didn't appear to be in bed. In fact, he realized slowly, he was in a shuttle. Sprawled on the floor, in an extremely undignified position. Surely he hadn't simply gone to sleep here.

Slowly, it came back to him. He'd gone out in a shuttlecraft to get better readings on the phenomenon, and as he approached, one of the long filaments had unexpectedly uncoiled in his direction. With thrusters down and no way to steer, he had been unable to maneuver the shuttlecraft out of its way. It had struck the shuttle with a violent impact, sending sparks flying from the console and jolting him out of his chair.

His last memory was of hitting the floor, hard. Evidently the impact had somehow knocked him unconscious. But that didn't explain how his dream program had been activated.

He got to his feet, brushing himself off as he did so. He noticed one of the access panels on his head had been opened by the force of his collision with the floor, which might possibly explain how his dream program had been turned on. He attempted to close the panel but discovered the cover had been snapped off. It lay on the floor, a patch of his dark brown hair with it.

As he was not programmed for vanity, it did not bother him to have part of his internal workings showing. He sat down in the shuttle's seat and spoke.

"Enterprise, this is Commander Data."

There was no response. Clearly communications were out. Data attempted to access the shuttle's computer, but it was damaged beyond repair. _Fried_, as Geordi would have remarked. In fact, he realized, most of the shuttle's systems were down, including life support. In moments he would use up the remaining available oxygen. Fortunately he was not dependent on oxygen.

The shuttle's systems having failed him in his quest for information, he did the next logical thing and looked out the front window of the shuttle.

He was no longer traveling toward the anomaly. It appeared that the filament's impact had sent the shuttle tumbling in a new direction. A view of the smooth white hull of the Enterprise filled most of the window.

As he watched, a greenish light reached out from the saucer section and snared the shuttle. A tractor beam. Within moments he would be back aboard his ship.

With inhuman patience, he sat and waited.

-x-x-x-

Data's shuttlecraft was guided back into the shuttlebay by automatic systems that were fortunately still functioning. He doubted the ship had sufficient energy left to attempt a transporter beam, and wouldn't really have cared to be on the receiving end of such an experiment.

The back end of the shuttle refused to open automatically, so he pulled the manual release, pushed the door down, and stepped out of the shuttle. As he strode around the corner of the shuttle he came to an abrupt stop, experiencing the closest sensation to shock he'd ever felt in his life.

He had nearly collided with Tasha Yar.


	5. Chapter 5

"Oh... my..._God_."

Tasha's face wore a mixture of shock, horror, and simple bewilderment. Data rather suspected his face mirrored hers. "Tasha?" he whispered, stretching out a hand to her.

She stepped backward, apparently reflexively, then seemed to come to herself. She drew her phaser and pointed it at him, at the same moment hitting her combadge. "Security team to shuttlebay!" she snapped. "We have an intruder!"

Faced with an absolutely incomprehensible situation, to say nothing of a phaser, Data stood still. It seemed, under the circumstances, the only logical thing to do. He stared at Tasha, seeing that her face was slightly rounder, her body a trifle less slender than it had been when he had known her. There were small lines at the corners of her eyes—he believed they were usually referred to as laugh lines, although she was definitely not laughing now—and a streak or two of gray, difficult to see in her blonde hair. She looked, he thought, exactly as she had in his dream.

Therefore he was dreaming again. He had to be.

Yet he realized almost instantly that wasn't the case. This was no dream. He could tell the difference. No matter how real his dreams had seemed recently, there was still a certain distortion, an unmistakable fuzziness that betrayed them as dreams.

This was reality.

He simply didn't understand how it could be real.

The security team, garbed in yellow-green and black uniforms, arrived, and hard on their heels came Picard. With five phasers pointed in his direction, Data looked calmly past the security team. "Captain," he said.

Picard frowned. "Who the hell are you?"

"Not who," Tasha said in a strangled voice. "_What_. Look at his head, Captain."

Picard moved slowly to the side, and Data saw his eyes widen as he saw the patch of exposed circuitry on Data's head. "_Mon Dieu_," he whispered, reverting to his native French, as he did in times of stress. "It's a robot. A _machine_."

To be called a machine by a man who had always addressed him with respect, a man who had defended his rights as a sentient being in court, a man who had always treated him as the equal of any human, was nearly as shocking as running into Tasha. But Data at last felt he was beginning to understand what was going on here. Captain Picard would never in a million years have referred to him that way.

This, then, was not Captain Picard. At least, not the Picard he knew.

His suspicions were confirmed when Picard pressed his lips together and said harshly, "What have you done with Commander Soong?"

Data glanced at the five phasers pointing ominously in his direction. He knew he had to make his case, and make it quickly, or he might never get another chance. This Picard might order him summarily destroyed, not understanding that he was a sentient being.

"I have done nothing with Commander Soong," he said in his most precise tones. "I believe we inadvertently switched places in the anomaly. I suspect he is in my universe and I am in his."

Picard considered his words for a long moment. "Are you saying you belong in the parallel universe that phenomenon is linked with?"

"Yes, Captain. That is exactly what I am saying. Furthermore—" He hesitated and glanced at Tasha. "I believe Commander Soong and I occupy the same place in our respective universes. My creator, the man I think of as my father, was Noonien Soong. I do not, however, use my father's last name. My name is Lieutenant Commander Data."

Picard narrowed his hazel eyes suspiciously. "Commander Soong is a full commander, my executive officer."

"That may be due to the fact that as a human he has greater ambition than I do," Data suggested. "In my universe, you are the captain of the Enterprise, and the second-in-command is William T. Riker."

The name clearly shocked Picard. "Will," he said in a whisper.

"I presume he is not aboard the Enterprise in your universe."

"No," Picard said harshly. "He was killed in the line of duty."

Data blinked. "Really? May I ask in what mission?"

"Captain—" Tasha objected, but the captain waved her to silence.

"We need to get to the bottom of this, Lieutenant." He turned back to Data. "He was killed by a creature named Armus."

Data was unsurprised. In his universe, Armus was the black, tar-like creature who had killed Tasha Yar. Evidently in this universe, Tasha had either not been on that away mission, or Riker had moved to protect her and been killed in her stead. "I see," he said. "In my universe Armus killed—" He paused. "Another crewmember."

Captain Picard stared at him a long moment. At last he said to Tasha, "Lieutenant, I think we have to believe that this robot is telling the truth."

"I am an android, not a robot," Data interjected. "I am also a sentient being."

Tasha stared at him, her blue-gray eyes wide with surprise. "Sentient? What do you mean by that?"

"I am self-aware, just as you are."

"Are you saying you're a person?"

Data nodded.

"And in your universe," she said slowly, "are you..."

Data tilted his head. "Am I what?"

She hesitated, then fired the words in a rush. "Are you married?"

Data shook his head. Once again he wondered if he might have been, had Tasha not been killed. If his counterpart in this universe had married Tasha, did it mean he should have also? Had Tasha had feelings for him that he had been too naive to recognize?

Realizing there was no way of knowing, he quashed the questions rioting in his mind._Curiosity killed the cat,_ he thought, and for the first time thought he might understand what the saying meant. His insatiable curiosity had certainly led him into a dangerous situation this time. The last thing he needed was to make the situation worse by asking too many questions.

"Captain," he said urgently, turning toward Picard, "I realize this is a strange situation, but you are going to have to believe me. I am from a different universe, one that is apparently a parallel of this one. And we need to act quickly if we are to restore myself and Commander Soong to our respective universes. We must act before the anomaly disappears."

Picard looked at him a long moment, then shook his head. Data thought he detected sympathy in the hazel eyes. "It's too late for that, uh, Commander."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The anomaly has already disappeared."


	6. Chapter 6

"I am sorry about this, Lieutenant."

Tasha lifted her head and gazed at Data. In her eyes he saw a suspicious glitter, but when she spoke her voice was as level as ever. "Don't be," she answered. "We'll get Daystrom back. We have to."

The Enterprise's engines had resumed operation once the anomaly disappeared, and the ship had moved away to a safer distance. Data was seated in the ready room, alone with Tasha, waiting for the remainder of the senior staff. This ship's senior staff, he reminded himself. Here he was not a member of the staff, merely an advisor of sorts.

"If the phenomenon has disappeared entirely from this universe, its entirety may still be in my universe," Data suggested. "There is a significant likelihood it will return shortly."

He was not sure why he felt the need to reassure her. There was, of course, every possibility that the anomaly might not ever return, that like a wormhole it had no stable placement, or that it only connected the two universes once in a century or more. Naturally occurring wormholes were notoriously unstable; there was no reason to think that this phenomenon, a similar hole in spacetime, should be any different.

But somehow, when faced with Tasha's slightly damp eyes, he did not feel comfortable saying so.

The door to the ready room slid open, and Captain Picard strode in. He looked precisely like the Picard that Data knew from his own universe, with a raptor-curved nose and a smooth, hairless scalp, and his lips were set in a thin line, showing the same grim resolve Data would have expected his own captain to display when a crewmember was in danger. Behind him filed Geordi, looking precisely the same, Deanna Troi, and—

Data stared in surprise at the man coming in behind Troi. There was no mistaking that dark hair, the humorless face, and the square shoulders. It was Commander Bruce Maddox. The man who had tried to block his admission into Starfleet; the man who had tried to have him declared the property of Starfleet in order to disassemble him.

Except, he reminded himself, this Bruce Maddox had had nothing to do with all that. In fact, the fact that he was here at all, rather than at the Daystrom Institute, indicated he had no special interest in artificial intelligence. Which made sense, since the Maddox of his universe had developed an interest in artificial intelligence only after meeting Data. This Maddox had never encountered a Soong-type android before. And here, Data saw, observing the pips at the man's collar, he was a lieutenant commander rather than a full commander.

He noticed Worf wasn't in the room, either, and wondered if Worf had been killed in the line of duty, wasn't on the ship, or simply wasn't a crewmember for some reason. He decided not to ask bluntly. Doubtless the fewer comparisons made between universes the better.

Picard sat down. "You are all aware of the nature of our problem," he said, his voice tautly controlled. "We have lost a crewmember, and we have not the faintest idea of how to get him back. Along the way we seem to have gained a passenger. This is Lieutenant Commander Data."

Data saw the shock on Geordi's face as Geordi glanced at him. He must bear a strong resemblance to Daystrom Soong, he thought. Which was not surprising. His face was his father's, copied exactly from the original except for his pale skin and golden eyes. If Daystrom resembled his father closely they would naturally look similar. And the blinking circuitry on the side of his head must make the resemblance all the more surreal.

He inclined his head to the room at large. "I am sorry to meet you under these circumstances," he said.

There was a silence, broken at last by Geordi. "Are you a robot?"

"No. I am a sentient android."

Maddox spoke for the first time. "An android is just a robot made to look like a human, isn't it?"

Data met the man's eyes unflinchingly. He would have sworn he saw hostility there, but perhaps it was merely his memory of Bruce Maddox coloring his perceptions. "A robot is purely mechanical. I have organic components. At any rate, I prefer to be referred to as an android."

"We don't have time to discuss philosophy," Picard said with an impatient wave of his hand. "We need to determine if there's any way to determine precisely when the anomaly will return, and failing that, if there is a way to force it to return. Otherwise we have no hope of recovering Commander Soong."

"Commander Soong may be lost in any case," Data remarked. "If the anomaly has disappeared in this universe, but is still manifested in my universe, the Enterprise may not be able to restore power and escape from the region."

Geordi glanced at him sidelong. "You don't sound real worked up about that possibility, all things considered."

Data tilted his head, detecting disdain in Geordi's tone but unable to determine precisely why. "I do not understand."

"I mean," Geordi said shortly, "you don't seem real worried about the idea of all your friends dying."

"I have no emotions," Data explained. There was so much these people took for granted in his universe, so much he hadn't had to explain in years. And now he was having to explain it all over again, just as he had in his first year on his own Enterprise.

"And yet you claim you're sentient," Maddox said. "Can a sentient being _not_ have emotions?"

"I _am_ sentient," Data answered. "And my rights as a life-form were established in the judicial system of my own universe."

"I just don't believe one can be sentient without some sort of feelings," Maddox said. "Even a dog has emotions of a sort, after all."

In Data's lifetime, no one, no matter how prejudiced against artificial lifeforms, had ever compared him to a pet before. He lifted his chin and met Maddox's gaze. "If I did possess emotions, Commander Maddox," he said coolly, "I believe that I would find you extremely irritating."

He thought he heard a snort of amusement from Picard's direction, but when he glanced back at the captain his face was as much like granite as ever. "Please, gentlemen," Picard said. "Let us refrain from bickering. We have a serious problem to work out, if at all possible." He turned toward Geordi. "Mr. LaForge, is there any way to make the phenomenon reappear?"

"We're going to have to get more data." Geordi slid a look at Data. "I mean, uh, information. We just don't know enough about how that thing works, or what kind of a schedule it's on. If it has a schedule. It might be more like a wormhole, appearing all over this quadrant."

"There must be some way to find it," Tasha said.

"It's hard to say. We don't have the slightest idea why it showed up in the first place. We need to take some readings, see if this area of space seems to fluctuate. That might give us some clues."

Picard nodded. "Mr. Maddox, you will need to see to that."

"Sir," Maddox said, "I think we should also check for references to this anomaly in the database."

Picard lifted his eyebrows. "I thought you were unable to find any, Commander."

"My search was cursory at best, sir. We need to check the references to similar phenomena in this quadrant, see if we can find anything at all."

Picard nodded. "Very well. Mr. Maddox, please devote yourself to taking additional readings on this area of space and see if you can come to any conclusions. Mr. LaForge, see if you can find any references to the anomaly in the database. The rest of us—" He looked sour. "Will wait."

"Sir," Deanna said, "I wish I didn't have to bring this up, but our mission cannot afford to be delayed for long."

"Are you suggesting that a bunch of Klingons—" Tasha began indignantly, but Picard lifted a hand, and she cut off.

"Counselor Troi is correct," he said, his voice quiet. "This mission is important to the Klingons, and thus it must be treated with equal importance by us. The Klingons are very valuable allies, and we cannot afford to lose them. But we do have a day or so of grace built into our schedule. Therefore, we will spend that day finding out every speck of information we can about the anomaly." He turned toward Tasha, and his eyes softened. "Lieutenant Soong, I promise you that if we have to leave this area, we will return at the earliest possible opportunity."

"Thank you, sir," she whispered. Data got the impression she was near tears, even though her features were frozen into a stiff mask.

Picard looked around the room, at the solemn faces ringed around the conference table, and hesitated for a long moment. At last he spoke.

"Dismissed."

*****

"Do you drink?"

As Data was leaving the ready room, the diffident voice behind him made him turn. Geordi stood just behind him, looking uncomfortable. Even for Data, Geordi's face was difficult to read, concealed as much of it was by the VISOR, but the set of his shoulders betrayed a certain tension.

"I do not need to drink, but I am able to do so."

Geordi looked even more awkward. "I just wondered if you'd like to join me in Ten-Forward."

Data was unsurprised, as he had seen Geordi and Picard exchange significant looks a moment before. Ordinarily the Security Chief would remain with a suspicious passenger and monitor his activities around the ship, but Picard evidently realized Tasha was unlikely to be the best person for this particular job. Apparently Geordi was to keep an eye on him.

Even so, there was no reason why Geordi should ask him to join him for a drink. It was a generous offer that showed a surprising willingness to treat him as a person rather than a computer. In his own universe, Geordi was the one person who had never treated him as a machine, even from the moment they'd met. Evidently Geordi was a decent person even in a different reality.

"I would like that," he responded.

As they walked down the hallway together, Geordi was silent for a long time. At last he burst out, "I guess you might think it's weird I asked you to go to Ten-Forward."

"Not at all. In my reality you—or rather the Geordi I know—is my best friend."

"No kidding," Geordi said. Some of the tension left his shoulders. "Daystrom is my best friend."

"That is not surprising," Data offered. "Most physicists have postulated that neighboring quantum realities will share a great many similarities."

"I'd say our realities are pretty different. You're a machine; your counterpart is a human."

Realizing that Geordi meant no offense by the use of the term, Data decided not to repeat that he preferred not to be described as a machine. "Nevertheless, that entire difference, large though it appears to us, may flow from two different decisions made by one man. My father—"

"Your _what_?"

"My creator," Data corrected himself. "I met him only once, when he was very old, and he asked me to call him Father. I usually refer to him that way, both out of respect for his wishes and because I do feel a certain kinship with him. At any rate, in my reality, Noonien Soong built only two androids that I know of, and both of them functioned to varying degrees. It is possible, I suppose, that there were previous prototypes of which I know nothing. It is evident, however, that in this reality Dr. Soong was unsuccessful."

"Day told me he built three, then quit when none of them worked."

_He built three of the damned things before he gave up and had me instead_.

Data was reminded with unpleasant force of his dream. He was beginning to suspect, based on the available evidence, that those experiences had been more than dreams, but he felt it would not be prudent to disclose that right now. As a "machine," he was already suspect in this reality; if he claimed prior knowledge of this reality, they might decide he was insane, or not what he purported to be. At any rate, he needed more information. To use a poker analogy, he could not afford to show his hand yet.

"I imagine Dr. Soong found that a difficult decision to make," he said. "In my reality, he persisted. In this reality, he did not. A small decision on his part which led to numerous changes in this universe."

They had reached Ten-Forward. The heavy wooden doors with central glass windows, etched with the symbol of Starfleet, were precisely like those of Data's Enterprise. As the doors slid open and they stepped inside, heads turned at every table, and eyes widened with shock. Data noted a perceptible reduction in decibel levels as conversations ceased all over the room.

"Numerous changes," Geordi repeated as they found a table near the big windows and sat down. "Like what?"

Data hesitated. "There are no Starfleet regulations covering this situation," he said at last, "but I suspect it presents difficulties similar to time travel. Too much information from one reality might corrupt the nature of this one. Therefore I do not feel comfortable discussing my reality in any detail."

"But we're friends there."

"Yes. Very good friends."

"What about..." Geordi paused. "What about your family?"

"I do not have a family, Geordi."

"You're not married?"

"No. Tasha—" Data stumbled to a halt, feeling as awkward as it was possible for him to feel. "In my reality, we did not become a couple." _At least not for long_, he amended mentally.

Geordi looked at him across the table for a long moment. "Daystrom has two kids."

_Ishara and Juliana._ He recalled their names, their faces, their wildly curling blonde hair, from a dream. "Indeed. I cannot sire children. But I did create a child."

"You mean a robot?"

"An android," Data corrected. "Like myself. Unfortunately, there was a flaw in her design, and she only lived for two weeks before suffering cascade failure and permanent cessation of consciousness."

"You mean she died."

"Yes." Data did not elaborate on the fact that he had reincorporated most of his daughter's programming into his own. This was an alien, difficult-to-grasp concept even for those humans who knew him well.

"What was her name?"

"Lal. It means _beloved_ in Hindi."

"Day's kids are named Ishara and Juliana."

Yet another confirmation that his "dreams" had been more than mere imagination. Those names could not possibly be coincidence. "I recognize one of the names. Ishara is Tasha's sister."

"You don't know Juliana? She was Day's mother."

Data lifted his eyebrows. "To my knowledge Dr. Soong was not married. However, he was extraordinarily reclusive and secretive, and a great deal remains unknown about his life. It is perfectly possible he was, in fact, married at the time he created me."

Geordi shrugged. "Day's mother has been dead for years, unfortunately. But Tasha's sister Ishara still lives on Turkana IV. She came aboard for a few days a year or so ago."

"Yes, I met Ishara. In fact, we became friends for a brief period of time."

"Weird," Geordi said. The bartender brought him a brown, foamy drink, and he picked it up and took a long sip. "It seems like some things about our universes are exactly the same."

"Yes. Such as the fact that you invariably order Denuvian root beer."

"Really? No kidding." Geordi grinned briefly, then sobered. "But some things are totally different. Like you and Day. You look a lot alike, but you're not even remotely the same person."

"No," Data agreed. "We are not."

"And—no offense—but I hope we get you two switched back somehow. I'd hate to never see Day again."

"I am not offended. I may not be capable of emotion, but I would nevertheless be dismayed to never see my home again, and my friends." Data looked out the window at the stars, which looked precisely as they did in his own universe. "But I think we have to admit that it is highly unlikely we will be able to return to our own realities."

"Damn," Geordi said softly.

"Yes," Data agreed. "My sentiments precisely."


	7. Chapter 7

"It's like the damned thing was never there at all."

Data glanced up at Geordi's annoyed statement. He and Geordi were in Engineering, studying the information on the anomaly, which was maddeningly sparse. Maddening for Geordi, at any rate. Data rather enjoyed mysteries, inasmuch as he could enjoy anything, and had spent numerous hours on the holodeck solving Sherlock Holmes mysteries. He could only hope this mystery could be as readily solved.

"Actually," he said, "Commander Maddox's readings indicate there are significant quantum variations. The anomaly has a distinct energy signature, and there is a clear residue of its signature left in the area."

"But it's not there now," Geordi grumbled. "It's not on any star charts. No one's ever reported seeing it before."

"This is not a frequently traveled space lane."

"Still, _someone_ must have seen the damned thing before." Geordi sighed. "Unless it only shows up once a millennium. In which case I guess we can forget about seeing Day again."

Data frowned. "It is intriguing that both Enterprises were in this area. Perhaps that is a necessary function of parallel universes, yet so much is different about our realities that they surely diverge occasionally. Tell me, why was your ship traveling here, so far away from Federation space?"

"We're transporting a Klingon delegation to a peace conference."

Data nodded. "On Darbeii. Is that correct?"

Geordi turned and looked at him with mild surprise. "I guess your ship was on the way there too, huh?"

Too late, Data realized he'd revealed information from his dream. "No," he said. "We were on the way to an archaeological survey on Kron III."

"Then how'd you know about Darbeii?"

For a brief moment, Data considered disclosing the truth. _I have been dreaming about your reality for the past two days._ Even to him, it sounded odd. More than odd. Suspicious. How could a stranger have knowledge of events he'd never witnessed? Would anyone here even believe that an android could dream?

And if Captain Picard found him suspicious, he would likely wind up in the brig. Worse yet, he might be turned over to the Federation as a possible spy. In this universe, he had no legal rights. He would probably be disassembled out of sheer scientific curiosity.

Data had no desire to be disassembled.

"Lieutenant Yar mentioned it," he said, lying as blithely as he could manage. He was not a particularly good liar, but Geordi fortunately did not have a suspicious nature.

"I bet she was complaining about the Klingons," he said with a wry smile. "They've caused nothing but trouble for the past week. They've been driving her crazy."

"Klingon delegations have wreaked havoc on my Enterprise in the past."

"_Havoc_ is putting it mildly, believe me. They drink barrels of replicated blood wine and get loud and rowdy and impossible to handle. Guinan had to pull a phaser on them the other day. She said it was because they were getting out of hand, but I think it was because they complained her _gagh_ wasn't fresh."

"Guinan does not tolerate insults about the food she serves," Data agreed. He bent over the console again. "Here is an interesting reference to a spatial phenomenon. The primitive inhabitants of Taret, a planet three-point-four lightyears from here, worship a god they call F'ar'al'ad, which means, roughly translated, light in the sky."

"You're kidding, right?"

Data lifted his head and gazed at Geordi, puzzled. "I do not know how to kid, Geordi."

Geordi's mouth twitched in what looked like involuntary amusement. "I mean, who cares what some primitive culture believes?"

"It could be relevant," Data said evenly, looking back at the monitor. "The inhabitants of Bajor worship the Prophets who reside in the Temple—alien beings who live in a wormhole. Simply because a society does not have space travel does not mean they cannot see the sky."

"Yeah. I guess you could be right."

Additional information flashed by on the screen, and Data shook his head. "Unfortunately, the description of the Taret god appears to describe a supernova they witnessed some eight hundred years ago."

"Damn. Well, keep looking."

Information continued to stream across Data's terminal. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Geordi staring at the screen, flashing information far too rapidly for any organic mind to comprehend.

"I guess being an android does have its advantages, huh?"

Data did not look up from the screen. "If you are referring to my ability to absorb information, I suppose you are correct. However, I would be willing to sacrifice that ability in order to truly experience emotion."

"How touching."

At the new voice, Data turned and saw Bruce Maddox approaching. His face wore an unpleasant sneer of contempt that matched his tone of voice precisely. Maddox came to a stop and looked down on Data. He was quite tall, and Data suspected he intended to use his height to intimidate. Unfortunately for him, it was impossible to intimidate an android.

"So you'd be willing to give up everything to be a human," Maddox said.

"Not everything, no."

"But you'd be willing to give up what makes you _you_, wouldn't you? The ability to process information quickly, the ability to think like a machine? You'd give that up?"

Data contemplated the question seriously. "Yes. Those abilities do not seem to me to be as important as the ability to feel emotion."

"Your priorities are out of whack," Maddox said. "I'd give anything to be able to think as fast as you do."

Perhaps that explained Maddox's relentless desire to understand Soong-type androids in his own universe, Data thought. Perhaps Maddox had intentions of eventually transferring his own sentience into an android. If so, he would not be the first to imagine such a thing. Much could be gained in such a transfer—strength, intelligence, and perhaps immortality.

Data, however, was in a unique position to understand how much might be lost as well.

"Speed of thought is not everything," he said, watching the information scroll by. "Creativity of thought is more important, in my estimation."

"You're not creative?"

"I endeavor to be creative. I play the clarinet and the violin, and I paint. I have also written a novel, three hundred seventy-two poems, and twelve songs."

"Sounds pretty damn creative to me," Geordi said.

"I doubt it," Maddox said. "It sounds as if it's emulating humans but not really understanding what makes them human. Like a small child pretending to be an adult."

Data noticed Maddox referred to him as _it_, just as his counterpart had in his own universe. "I prefer to be referred to with the male pronoun," he said.

Maddox looked down at him with a crooked grin. "Male and female are biological terms,_Commander_. You're not a biological entity, so I can't justify that from a scientific standpoint."

At the deliberately insulting tone, Data came to his feet abruptly. Maddox was a good deal taller than he was, but he stared into the other man's eyes without blinking. Humans, particularly males, tended to regard that as a belligerent gesture, and it caused many of them to back down. It was a technique he had learned for quelling insubordinate behavior by closely observing Commander Riker.

"In that case," he answered, "you may justify it from a social standpoint. I am physically and psychologically a male. And I wish to be referred to that way." He narrowed his eyes slightly, noticing that Maddox blinked rapidly twice. "I trust I make myself clear, _Lieutenant Commander_."

Maddox looked away from him. "Fine," he said, doing his best to sound unconcerned, but Data noticed he looked a trifle uncomfortable. "It doesn't matter all that much to me."

"It matters to _me_," Data said as he sat back down.

Geordi looked at Maddox. Data detected a small smile on his lips. "Is there something you wanted, Commander? Or did you just come to bait Data?"

"Uh, I've got some information," Maddox said, holding out a tricorder. "I couldn't pin the anomaly down. Looks like it could form anywhere in this quadrant. I honestly don't see any possibility of getting Commander Soong back."

"Damn," Geordi said again.

Data said nothing, but internally he echoed the sentiment.


	8. Chapter 8

Captain Picard had kindly assigned Data VIP quarters, larger and more luxuriously furnished than his own, rather spartan, quarters on the Enterprise. They also had a large bank of windows showing an expansive view of the stars, unlike his own quarters, which were on an inner corridor of the saucer section. Androids did not suffer from a tendency to romanticize space, and gazing at the stars had always seemed a peculiar human habit to Data. If he wanted to know something about the regions of space through which the Enterprise traveled, he would go to the observatory or consult the computer.

Yet this evening he sat staring at the stars.

The door sounded, and he called, "Enter." As the door slid open, he turned his head and saw, to his surprise, Tasha Yar.

Or rather, Tasha Soong.

Some obscure piece of programming impelled him to rise to his feet. "Tasha," he said. "Can I help you?"

Tasha hesitated near the door, looking at him with wide eyes. She looked apprehensive, perhaps even frightened. Naturally, he thought, the fact that she was married to Day made her the most likely crewmember to be alarmed by his extremely different nature.

"You're very polite," she said at last.

Data lifted his eyebrows. He had expected her to explain why she was here. Instead she had commented on his programming. Perhaps, he thought, she intended that as a clue as to her purpose here. "Are you suggesting that my counterpart is not?"

Tasha took another step into the room, allowing the door to slide shut behind her. "Not usually, no. I don't mean he's rude, just blunt. He tells people what he thinks. It's what makes him such a good officer."

"It would appear that he and I possess extremely dissimilar managerial styles."

The corners of Tasha's lips twitched upward. "There's also the way you talk."

"The way... I talk?"

"Uh-huh. Day uses a lot of slang. He talks like a regular person."

"I have never mastered appropriate slang usage," Data admitted.

"No kidding?" The faint smile she gave him made him suspect she was being sarcastic. Really, so many humans were providing him with examples of sarcasm this week that he might shortly be able to adequately refine his linguistic program to identify it on a regular basis. Perhaps he would even be able to use it himself, although he still failed to comprehend exactly why humans used it rather than saying precisely what they thought to begin with.

But then, there was quite a lot he failed to comprehend about humans.

"Why are you here, Tasha?"

She blinked in surprise. "Well. So you can be blunt too."

"It seemed the best way of bringing the conversation to a meaningful point. Geordi calls it 'cutting to the chase.'"

She crossed the floor and sat down in a chair that was quite a distance away from his. It was, he noted, further away than humans liked to be when they conversed with other people. Therefore, logically, she did not consider him to be a person.

That should not be in the least surprising, all things considered. She did not know him at all. They had only had one brief conversation. As far as she knew, he might be no more sentient than a turbolift. And yet he could not help but feel slightly...

Offended?

"I wanted to talk to you," she said.

He noted her hesitant tone and spoke with perhaps more curtness than was appropriate. "That would seem to be obvious."

"I wanted—" She waved her hands in the air, another human gesture that perplexed Data, since as far as he could determine waving one's hands did not make one's words any more comprehensible. Nevertheless, he carefully recorded the action and filed it away for his next acting lesson with Dr. Crusher. "I just wanted to get to know you a little. That's all."

"Because I am your husband's counterpart?"

Tasha hesitated again. "I have to admit, it's a strange thought for me that if his father had kept on making androids, Day might have been a... _machine_."

The thinly veiled disgust in her tone grated across his aural sensors in a vaguely unpleasant fashion. "I prefer not to be referred to as a machine."

"But—" She nodded toward the blinking lights in his scalp. "You _are_ one."

"On the contrary, the term _machine_ carries a connotation of a lack of sentience, a certain—" Data caught himself. He was not the most adept conversationalist in the quadrant, but he did realize that Tasha had not come here to discuss android sentience or android rights. Indeed, the concepts must be utterly alien to her. Until today, no one in this universe had met a sentient android. Accustomed as he was to his friends aboard his own Enterprise, he was expecting too much from these people.

"I understand that it must be a very peculiar situation for you," he said instead.

"Peculiar, yeah. Maybe downright weird. You—" Tasha looked at him consideringly. "You look just like Day, you know."

"I am made in my father's image."

"Well, so is Day, apparently. Except for the skin and the eyes, you could be twins. And except for the way your hair is so neat. Day's hair is almost never neat. And he's starting to lose it at the top." Tasha grinned briefly. "Drives him nuts."

Data accessed hastily and determined that nuts was a slang synonym for insanity. It was not immediately clear to him why a man could be driven into psychosis by a loss of hair, but he presumed Tasha was speaking more metaphorically than literally.

"I do not age," he said at last.

She tilted her head to the side as she thought about that. "In a way, that's kind of sad. Do you have friends? People you care about?"

Inexplicably nettled that she thought it necessary to define _friends_, Data gave a short nod.

"So they'll all get old, and you won't?"

Data activated his shrug subroutine and lifted a shoulder. He had considered this matter before. "I will most likely resort to cosmetic aging."

"You mean make yourself look older on purpose?"

"Precisely."

"I guess that would work. But if you don't get old, will you ever die?"

"The Federation's top cyberneticists have been unable to determine that. It appears this body could last for several centuries, but there are certain anomalies in my programming which have been artfully concealed by Dr. Soong. It is not impossible that I have a subroutine which will eventually activate and cause me to suffer neural net failure."

Tasha looked horrified. "You mean your creator might have _planned_ for you to die?"

"He might have thought it would be kinder than to permit me to live forever. My father—Dr. Soong—had an unusual way of viewing the universe."

"You keep referring to him in the past tense. Is he dead in your universe?"

_I will have to be more careful_, Data thought with remorse. Aloud, he said, "I would prefer not to answer that question."

"He came to our wedding," Tasha said reminiscently. "He was very, very old, shriveled and wrinkled like a prune, but he still made it."

Data had recently encountered a much-younger version of his father in his dream program, but he clearly recalled the single time he'd met his father in real life. Noonien Soong had been hunched over and fragile, his face heavily lined, his long, wild hair sparse and white, yet he'd displayed a vivid intelligence that clearly had not dimmed in the least with the passing of years.

"You're right, he's got an unusual way of seeing things. He told me that Day and I were fated to be together. That we would always be together. I thought—" Tasha's voice trailed off, then she went on. "I thought maybe we would be."

"Perhaps you will be," Data said gently.

"Or perhaps he's dead." Tasha jumped to her feet and stalked restlessly to the windows. "I hate not knowing, dammit. I just wish there was a way to _know_."

_There is a way you could know._

Data had been busy since his arrival in this universe, too busy for irrelevant matters such as dreaming. But abruptly he realized dreaming might be the only way for him to contact Daystrom Soong. His dreams might be more relevant than he had previously supposed.

As Geordi would have said, it was worth a shot.

"Tasha," he said, "you will have to excuse me. I find I am..." He stumbled slightly over the lie. "Tired."

She turned and looked at him with surprise. "You get tired?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It _is_ late. I guess I'd better get home to the girls."

Data watched her as she walked from his quarters. Her stride was purposeful, determined, precisely like the Tasha he had known.

For all intents and purposes, Tasha had been the same person in each universe.

And yet he and Daystrom Soong were completely dissimilar, two utterly alien beings. He was a stranger here, so different that Tasha was unable to conceptualize him as a person.

He wondered why he found that so disturbing.


	9. Chapter 9

_He couldn't breathe. _

_His lungs were laboring desperately for air, but there was none to be had. He was going to die here, with a shuttlecraft for a coffin, never seeing his wife and children again. Never seeing Geordi again. Unable to see anything or anyone that mattered to him as he died._

_He realized that wasn't precisely true. He could choose to die looking out at the stars he'd made it his life's work to explore. He could die looking into the vast depths of space. _

_With a violent, wrenching effort, he turned his head and gazed out the viewport._

_The stars were the last thing he saw before the blackness took him._

_*****  
_  
Daystrom Soong expected to be dead. It was something of a shock, therefore, to open his eyes and find himself in the Enterprise's sickbay. A few feet away he saw a familiar, blue-gowned figure. She was facing away from him, studying a computer padd, but there could be no mistaking the red hair spilling over her shoulders. Dr. Crusher, he thought with a surge of relief.

He hadn't died after all. They must have gotten him out just in time.

"Doctor—" he whispered. Even to his own ears his voice sounded faint, hoarse, and he realized his throat was sore. Too much gasping for air, probably. He had a hell of a headache, too. Must have slammed his head against something. Good thing his skull was so hard.

Despite the pain, he managed to lift his head slightly and tried again. "Doctor."

Crusher turned around. "Well," she said. "You're awake."

Day flashed her a rueful grin. "I guess I was lucky," he said.

"You might say that," Crusher said. "Then again, you might not."

What the hell did she mean by that? He didn't like the way she was watching him, with the kind of cautious look he'd seen her reserve for Romulans and Borg. He got the distinct feeling she had some bad news to impart, like he'd lost a limb or something. Crusher had never had much of a poker face.

His heart rate climbed, and he heard the monitor over his head start beeping. "I thought I was dead."

"You came pretty close. You were without oxygen longer than we would have liked. I was afraid you had some brain damage."

"But I don't. Do I?" He couldn't see how that was possible, because he felt perfectly normal. Sure, his head felt like it was on fire, but his mind was clear. He knew perfectly well who he was and where he was.

Crusher paused for a long moment. "No. You've got a concussion, and you've been out for a long time, but you seem to have come through it well enough."

And yet she still looked at him as if she was trying to bluff with a pair of threes in her hand. There was something else she wasn't telling him, he was certain. "But?"

"I think you need to talk to the captain."

"The captain? Beverly, what the hell is going on?"

Crusher turned away from him and hit her combadge. "Captain," she said to the air. "He's awake."

"On my way," Picard's crisp tones replied.

Crusher shot Day one last, uneasy look and moved away from him. He tried to sit up and go after her, demand that she explain what was going on, but he couldn't seem to move his body. At first he thought he'd been paralyzed, and an icy fear gripped him. But in a moment he realized he could feel his legs perfectly well.

He was being restrained by a force field.

Were they afraid he was going to hurt himself when they told him whatever news they had? Good God, had something happened to Tasha or the girls? He felt himself break out in a cold sweat. The monitor beeped, and he forced himself to breathe deeply, to slow his pounding heart.

The doors to sickbay opened, and Picard strode in.

"Captain," Day gasped. He took another deep breath and forced himself to speak more evenly. He had to be calm. He was second-in-command of this vessel, and hadn't gotten to that position by panicking. "Captain. What's going on?"

Picard walked toward him. On his stern face there was an expression of caution, of wariness, that mirrored Crusher's. He paused at Day's side.

"Who are you?" he said.

Day felt his mouth drop open. Whatever he'd expected, that wasn't it. "I beg your pardon?"

"I asked for your name."

Day felt the universe wobble, then steady, as he began to understand what was going on. Picard was just trying to make sure he knew his name and rank. A typical question to ask someone who'd received a blow or two to the head, although he couldn't quite work out why Crusher wasn't the one asking.

"Commander Daystrom Soong, Executive Officer, Enterprise 1701-D," he said crisply. He gave Picard a wry smile. "May I please get up now, sir?"

"No." Picard looked down at him and did not return the smile. "My executive officer is Commander William Riker."

Commander William Riker, the first executive officer of the Enterprise, had died some five years earlier. _That's odd_, Day thought. _I'm the one who hit his head, and yet he's the one who's losing his mind._

Which was, of course, ridiculous. It was impossible to imagine Jean-Luc Picard out of control of his own mind. Picard was the sanest person he'd ever known.

Panic and confusion clawed at his chest, but he struggled for a calm tone. "I'm afraid I don't understand, sir."

"I know you don't, Commander. Tell me about the anomaly you were investigating."

Did Picard think the anomaly had somehow affected his mind? "Uh..." he said, then forced himself into professional mode. "It appeared to be a spatial anomaly, rather than temporal. Lieutenant Commander Maddox thought it might be a kind of bridge, a gateway, between two..."

His voice trailed off as a horrible suspicion occurred to him. Picard offered a faint smile that held no trace of humor.

"I see you are beginning to understand."

"No," Day said faintly. "It can't be."

"I'm sorry, Commander. But it appears that you traded places with your counterpart from this universe."

"You mean I've switched _universes_?"

"I'm afraid so, Commander."

The panic was back. It slammed into him with the force of a phaser blast, knocking the breath out of him. It couldn't be. It just couldn't. He had responsibilities. His family. _Tasha_.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and stared at Picard. Never in his life had he felt so helpless, and he focused on Picard as if the man were a lifepod, the only thing keeping him from drowning in vacuum. Maybe this wasn't his Picard, but the firm resolve in those eyes was the same.

He had served under Jean-Luc Picard for five years, and he trusted the man with his life. Somehow, by hook or crook, Picard always managed to escape every disastrous situation he got caught in. If anyone could get Daystrom out of this horrendous mess, Picard could.

"You have to help me," he said in a harsh whisper. "Please. You have to help me get home."


End file.
